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Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault Adds a Tower-Defense Twist

Posted by James Stevenson on Jul 18, 2012 // Community Lead, Insomniac Games

Hey everyone, James from Insomniac Games here. Our team of veteran Insomniacs in North Carolina has been hard at work developing Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault, and today I’m happy to share new details surrounding Ratchet & Clank’s latest PSN adventure.

Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault heads back to the classic camera, weapons and third-person Ratchet gameplay that the series is known for, while adding a new tower defense element that will have you building and defending a base against invasions using your ultimate Ratchet & Clank arsenal. This new twist, added to the classic Ratchet gameplay, brings a whole new level of strategy and decision-making to Full Frontal Assault. You’ll want to make sure your Hoverboots are laced up and ready as you race to defeat your enemy while keeping your base secure. Wait, Hoverboots don’t have laces…

In Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault, our heroes face a new nemesis – one who has a nasty surprise planned for Captain Qwark. You’ll be able to choose between playing as Ratchet, Clank, or Captain Qwark, and confront an alien army across five levels set on three different planets. The game allows you and a friend to play together with either split-screen or online cooperative gameplay.

Full Frontal Assault will give you a ton of reasons to keep playing, including an online mode we’ll reveal later, as well as loads of upgrades, extra character skins and unlockable content, but we’d like to show you first screenshots of the game here!

Everyone here is very excited to bring Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault to you this fall. In the meantime, for those of you hungering for a Ratchet & Clank fix, be sure to check out the Ratchet & Clank Collection when it launches in the U.S. on August 28th. You may have seen some of the great reviews from the European release.

I’m trying to figure out what you guys mean by going back to the classic feel of gameplay. It’s been awhile since I’ve played the PS2 games (waiting for the US HD release), but I didn’t really notice much of a difference with the Ps3 games except it felt a little more smooth and refined, gameplay wise.

Love it! I’m already picking up the collection for my sons birthday and this will be a definite day 1 purchase for me. Love the inclusion of split-screen,

Questions: Is there still going to be a story or is this just a wave defense game? Please say there’s a story
and when do you think we’ll get to see the first trailer? My son always got so excited when ever I got to show him a trailer for R&C All4One he’d just say let’s play ratchet and clank 4 now and I’d have to tell him he had to wait.
You mentioned 3 characters is it 2 player split-screen or 3 player? I’ve got 3 kids and the 2 oldest love ratchet and Clank and I wouldn’t mind getting to play as well ;)

I’m total R&C junkie, and really stoked for this game! I have platinum trophies for R&C:A Crack in Time as well R&C:All 4 One. Soon will have them for R&C Collection and Full Frontal Assault.

Will this title feature drop-in and out co-op like All 4 One? Also, any possibility of trophy support for R&C:Tools of Destruction? I’ve played through it three times, but would love another reason to revisit it.

You guys do realize that by our pleas for you to return the series to its roots, we meant something a little more substantial than the camera angle? Having a fixed camera wasn’t exactly the all-changing formula in All4One. It was the fact it was a completely different game altogether. I think I’ll just stick with the HD collection and pass on the series’ new direction.

James, I think what people are worried about is that the levels are going to be relatively small arenas, like tower defence levels and that even if there’s nooks and crannies to explore in those arenas, it doesn’t give a feeling of travel and adventure, even to the extent Quest for Booty did.

Please please please bring back the magic from A crack in time, That game was perfect, it was like you were living and playing a pixar movie. I was so excited for A4O when i first heard about it, but it was just awful, no great story, the graphics took a shot down, and the humour and weapons weren’t that great, Bring back the good R&C with this please!

“So you made All4One and just shoved it out to stores without looking at the responses from fans and critics? Nice.”

I’m a father of 3. I have gaming boys aged 3 & 4 and they love Ratchet and Clank. Ratchet and Clank All 4 One is one of the most played games in my household and is one of our favorite games. The game is beautiful and a lot of fun. Stop making judgements about a game because it doesn’t fit your nostalgic preferences and enjoy it for what it is, R&C Crack in time is one of my favorite games and I could see how someone wanting more of that game could be upset with the formula in All4One but if you look at All4One as what it is a 4 player co-op action game set in the ratchet and clank universe then it is a fantastic game and probably one of the best in it’s genre.

James, do you know if Full Frontal Assault will be receiving an English physical release in any regions outside the US? I love the R&C series and I went through the trouble of importing the UK release of Quest for Booty back when it released.

I’d love to be about to have a nice PS3 blu-ray case for Full Frontal Assault to place on my shelf with Tools of Destruction, Quest for Booty, A Crack in Time and the upcoming HD collection!

Side Question: Is there any Plan to have The Ratchet and Clank: Future in a Bundle/Collection package sold for those that haven’t played the PS3 Trilogy? I’ve played ’em all, but I really liked this gen’s series and I think many who haven’t jumped on board yet, might take the opportunity to catch up.

I’m just gonna group my compliments here:
-A Crack in Time was the most beautiful game I’ve ever seen. The detail to fleshing out the different creatures and worlds in that game was phenomenal. the 60fps was buttery smooth too! The little things like the Radio stations when flying though space was fantastic. My favorite Part about the RaC universe is the characters are all interesting a diverse, and humorous!

-I have great Memories with UYA Multiplayer. That game and Star Wars Battle Front were great, and eventually convinced me to get a PS3 for Warhawk. I know you guys will do what you want, but my wish would be to see a RaC Multiplayer with tons of ridiculous characters from over the years, keeping the basic design of the original multiplayer, but adding elements of SW:BF and WH (Vehicles and Space Battles) would be amazing!!
And RaC is one of the Few universes that would work very well. And you could add a level of Humor that most Multiplayer games just could not achieve.

-Groovatron is the Best Weapon ever!!

-Side Plug: Does Insomniac have it’s own advertising department? I ask because I’m in Media Advertisment.

And with this game Insomniac, you’ve regained an old Ratchet customer. I had all the PS2 Ratchets, and I LOVED the online on the later PS2 games. I got PS3 at lauch and couldn’t wait to get my pre-ordered copy of Future:Tools. Then I found out there was no online so I cancelled my pre-order and you guys havn’t done what it took to pull me back to Ratchet………..until now. This is the kind of online Ratchet game I envisioned when I was waiting for Tools info.

So it’s basically like a Ratchet and Clank Hoard Mode mixed with a little bit of Dungeon Defenders style Tower Defense? Amazing!! ANd at an affordable PSN price? You’ve out-done yourselves this time. The only improvement I could think of would be more than 4 player co-op instead. I’ll be buying this when it launches regardless though, because as long as the co-op’s online, I’m interested.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for post launch support on a game like this. A hoard mode/TD blend game is absolutely RIPE for unlimited amounts DLC levels. On a game like this, I’d buy any piece you put out.

As a huge Ratchet and Clank fan, I’m ashamed of some of the ‘fans’ here but to each their own.

I loved All 4 One, it was top-down, but still felt R&C despite the change and it was more glitching (expected) it was still great and had a wonderful story and environments to go through. Even if I accept it as a ‘mediocre’ game, which I personally don’t, one game doesn’t make an entire franchise mediocre. Needs to be a pattern of mediocrity for that. And there hasn’t been with R&C. Even including non-Insomniac games on the PSP.

Anyway, I have one question. Will this have New Game Plus? Because, that’s the one thing that I *HATED* about Quest For Booty. Once you were done with QFB that was it. You couldn’t go through again with more difficulty in challenge mode, so you couldn’t as a result max out your weapons (usually with upgrades in challenge mode).

I assume the answer is yes, given you say this is more a full experience but just want to be sure.

@73 Agreed! I’ve loved R&C since the very beginning. Its great to hear that there will be a lot of gameplay to spend time with in FFA. I feel I can almost smell the HD Collection right around the corner… *sniff* sniff*. Can’t wait!

JAMES, will you answer a straight question without the beating around the bush nonsense.

1. what the heck is TOWER OF DEFFENCE?? and what is the point of having a twist element in R & C
2.will this lead to a full R& C game??
3. you said insomiac recieved hundreds of mail claiming ALL 4 ONE was great i beg the differ on that im sure other gamers will too the game was CRAPTASTIC. all 4 one and deadlock only 2 R& C that is horrendously horrible. if i could use a word worst than horrible I would say a piece of SH’T!!!

to us R & C fans play-asia.com will carry full frontal as a physical disc. no need to buy it as a download.
I bought QUEST FOR BOOTY as a physical disc. from play-asia.com as i will ratchet an clank full frontal assualt.

I’m not really a tower defence game fan, I’m more of a platformer fan but since I love the Ratchet & Clank games I’ll give that a try. Is there going to be add-ons for this game like a classic Ratchet outfit or something? ( I love the classic Ratchet outfit from R&C 1)

On a side note I bought All4One in Asia while in the Philippians and my son broke the disk so we bought it again when we got back to the US and got it for free on plus shortly after but because both of my PS3’s had played the Asian copy first it seems to have corrupted my save files on the US version because it doesn’t save any of my leveling up. It’s weird it remembers where I’m at but all the characters are level 0.

This definitely piques my interest. These screen shots look gorgeous already. I like tower defense, so if there are TD elements in this, I would like to try it. I hope there’s a demo. Also, I hope there is a possibility for a universal PS3/Vita release, like Sly Cooper.

Crack in time is my fav game on PS3 thus far. Really excited about this, because unlike these so called ‘fans’ I do understand where your coming from. You guys attempted at listening to your loyal fans and made All41, even it was received from us ‘fans’ harshly, I apologize on behalf of us on that part. I just hope this PSN only game is a tester for your next full retail R&C game (Fingers Crossed). And I can easily tell you guys are adding competitive multi-player with the online part. I can imagine the Tower Defense can be used to attack more than just defend. I’m soo exited for this but one HUGE problem.

I’m really disappointed about this but its the fact that we’re not getting the game in retail. I don’t buy games online. But if you can’t change it, I’m going to be forced to buy PSN cards just for this game.

Thank’s Insomniac, I wish your future success, and hopefully you’ll come out on top, like you always used to.
P.S can’t wait for the collection and the Sly demo.

I’m a big fan of R&C so I’m probably going to be picking this up, but why can’t you guys just realize that fans of R&C don’t want any of this crap? Just go back to making incredible platformer/shooters. No poorly implemented 4 player party coop, no tower defense gimmick (don’t you dare say twist again, quit with the buzzwords), no small downloadable titles, just the stuff that made the franchise great to begin with.

It really seems like after the failure of Deadlocked and TOD, both still pretty alright games but nowhere near as great as their predecessors, you took their failure to mean that people don’t like that formula anymore. Deadlocked wasn’t well received because you took Clank out of the gameplay and turned the game into objective based arenas with a half baked idea of partner AI in the form of those bots. TOD failed because it was terribly obvious that you guys hadn’t yet grasped how to develop on the PS3 and the game suffered noticeably because of it. Also, don’t say that it’s impossible to put trophies in TOD, Metal Gear Solid 4 is getting trophies and is a MUCH bigger game. The fact that you guys didn’t put trophies in from the start was a sign of your faith in it’s quality (or lack thereof).

Back to this new one, the idea sounds kind of cool. I like the idea of having a base, sounds like it will be another thing to be upgrading (love me some upgrades) but that all depends on how well it is implemented. A4O is fun, but the computer AI when playing alone makes it almost unplayable. You better have fixed that with this one. Also, PLEASE give a reason to keep on playing after you beat it. This was ACiT’s biggest let down, that there was virtually no reason to play on new game+. Omega weapons are boring, the best armor (which looks like a motocross suit, really?) was available before new game+, RYNO was available before ng+, come on. There needs to be a reason for players to continue playing otherwise the game will be a flash in the pan.

I wasn’t gonna post.. but all the hate A4O gets is unwarranted.. i guess it’s “cool” to hate on insomniac now but i digress.. A4O is awesome.. i loved it.

That said.. the “tower defense” thing has me worried, i hope it doesn’t require much smarts.. i don’t like rpg’s, strategy, nor tower defense games because they make my brain numb.. at least put a difficulty setting akin to the one in ACiT so as to not make the tower defense sections that hard.